By Sushil Kutty
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was honoured with the Lokmanya Tilak National Award in Pune. The big news was NCP Chief Sharad Pawar was there at the award ceremony while Congress and Pawar’s NCP leaders waved black flags. The thing is, Modi will go anywhere for an award. The Prime Minister’s cupboard must be choc-a-bloc with awards. Only the Nobel Peace Prize is missing.
Modi’s Lokmanya Tilak Award came for his “supreme leadership” qualities and for fostering patriotism among citizens though Modi bhakts everywhere would choose “nationalism” over patriotism for Modi. Sharad Pawar shared the stage with Prime Minister Narendra Modi against advice from I.N.D.I.A leaders. The optics did not look good. Modi’s “supreme leadership” is the last thing they want tom-tommed.
But Sharad Pawar, like God, moves in mysterious ways. The NCP strongman—who lost some of his strength when his nephew Ajit Pawar took off with half the NCP— doesn’t do things without a reason. The opposition I.N.D.I.A is disturbed but what can it do? Pawar can do harm to the MVA alliance. And the Opposition alliance is still to act cohesively since its Bengaluru initiation.
That being said, if action is not taken, Sharad Pawar’s presence in the alliance would be forever regarded as a symbol of divisions in I.N.D.I.A. No matter how much of a veteran, Sharad Pawar cannot run his own show at the expense of I.N.D.I.A if he is part of the opposition alliance.
That said, Sharad Pawar appears to be on his own trip. Why is Sharad Pawar cozying up to I.N.D.I.A’s Enemy No.1? The optics just do not focus. Modi is a disruption-ist and the man who broke the NCP, broke the trust between Uncle and Nephew. Besides, Sharad Pawar owes his Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance partners Congress and the Uddhav Thackeray Shiv Sena more than just “supreme leadership”.
There are, however, whispers that Sharad Pawar is working according to a plan to install nephew Ajit Pawar as Chief Minister of Maharashtra and that both of them are in it together. Also, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an important cog in ‘Install Ajit Pawar Maha CM’ plan. Point is, Maharashtra is rife with rumours and governance is taking a backseat in the Shinde government’s itinerary.
Having said that, only a naïve politician will trust the Pawar clan. Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar are not only relatives, they are also political allies. What Sharad Pawar does next is a matter of intense debate in Maharashtra’s power circles. Pawar is no longer UBT’s political mentor, his mind is focused on nephew Ajit Pawar’s political fortunes.
In the process even daughter and Member of Parliament Supriya Sule seems forgotten. The prognosis as of now is, the octogenarian former Maharashtra Chief Minister is using all his wiles, honed over five decades, to return the hard-hit NCP to its previous glory.
Sharad Pawar might have been a Congress bigwig, but it is the Nationalist Congress Party that he identifies with. After all, he founded the party and built it from scratch. The NCP is Sharad Pawar’s baby for keeps. It is his legacy and there’s nothing more sweet than leaving behind a legacy for all time to come!
Prime Minister Narendra Modi understands the feeling. He has spent 10 years dismantling Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s legacy to leave behind his own. Sharad Pawar’s presence at the Lokmanya Tilak Award ceremony must have a strategic reason. Pawar is the sort of person who wouldn’t do stuff if it didn’t have political value.
It is not that Sharad Pawar is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s best friend. Bottom-line, Modi and Sharad Pawar are political adversaries and if it wasn’t politics, Sharad Pawar wouldn’t have been seen in Modi’s proximity for all the gold in Fort Knox or in the RBI’s vaults.(IPA Service)
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